Distance Education students resent shift to online study material

By Sumiya shah
SRINAGAR: Students pursuing courses from the Directorate of Distance Education, University of Kashmir are aghast at the department’s move to shift to online study material.
Many students pursuing B.Ed from the directorate protested the move, complaining that despite taking fee for the study material (printed) at the time of admissions, they were being asked to download the study material.
The students said that at the time of admissions they were asked to pay Rs 28,000 per candidate as fee in two installments, and were told the study material would be provided by the varsity itself.
“When we went to the Dean Academic Affairs with our complaints he told us going to download the material from website. He said that we are getting third grade material from the university, and if we wanted that third grade material. Despite that we insisted for printed study material,” Shafiya Jamaal, a student representative said. The students complained that most of them were from far flung areas with dearth of electricity or internet.
“Only few students can afford to download the study material, as other students are from Uri, Gurez, Kupwara and Bandipora. They don’t have even electricity not to speak of this internet facility and why should they download the material if they have paid for the printed material,” Shafiya said.
Another student from the department, Yasmeen said that asking students to read from their mobile phones was an “injustice” to them.
“Reading on our phones or laptops continuously is not feasible for us as it affects our eyes. We cannot mark important information on our mobile phones. We appeal the university authorities to provide us the study material in the university at the earliest.”
Public Relation Officer, Kashmir University, Faheem Aslam told Kashmir Reader said that issue has been resolve.
“We have asked the department to provide the printed study material free of cost. In view of certain peculiar circumstances where we couldn’t get the material published, the problem arose,” Aslam said.
However, he added, that the university would stick to online material only, from next academic session”.